Hours before Walmart Inc. was scheduled to unveil the largest acquisition in its history, Masayoshi Son, chief executive officer of SoftBank Group Corp., spilled the beans to a roomful of investors and journalists in Tokyo. He confirmed that the U.S. retailer has agreed to buy control of Flipkart Online Services Pvt, the leading Indian e-commerce player backed by SoftBank.

“I think we announced it last night,” he said, during an investor call after his own company’s earnings. “If not, well then that means I’m just spouting this out. In any case, it’s been decided.”"